Category Archives: Philanthropy

Betsy DeVos is an innovator, a reformer, a proven leader and a disruptor. She has served as a Chairperson at the Michigan-based Windquest Group from 1993 to 2016. Windquest Group is a privately held firm that deals with manufacturing, clean energy, and technology. Betsy is married to Dick DeVos who is a philanthropist, an activist, and an entrepreneur. He is also the former President of the Orlando Magic NBA franchise and also a former president of Amway. Betsy joined politics when in college and has remained relevant for over 35 years. She has held senior positions in political action committees, campaigns, and party organizations. She has been the chairperson of Michigan Republican Party for six years being re-elected for the same office four times consecutively. Her husband also a politician was in 2006 nominated as Governor of Michigan under Republican Party. Visit Betsy’s profile page on Facebook.

As a devoted philanthropist, Betsy together with her husband founded the Dick and DeVos Family Foundation. She is well known for her dedicated efforts towards improving educational choices. Her school choice program has been successful, and today there are 250,000 learners from seventeen states and Columbia in publicly funded, private choice programs. This program has continued to gain popularity, especially among the Latinos. In 2012, they expanded the program to Ohio, Florida, and Arizona. New programs were also launched in Virginia, Louisiana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Mississippi. The number of students who enroll in educational-choice programs has risen tremendously over the years like in 2016 alone; the number grew by 40,000. Other programs Betsy has spearheaded include tax credits, education savings accounts, and vouchers. Betsy Devos biggest success has been with Florida which has benefited from extensive educational choice through its tax-credit scholarships. Florida records a constant growth of the number of learners in the school choice program. Currently, the number is more than 50,000 students. Read more articles at MLive.com about Betsy.

The educational choice movement also blends in charter schools, magnet schools, virtual schools and also homeschooling. Betsy’s desire to help students from low-income backgrounds grew as she visited Potter’s House Christian School which primarily comprises of low-income families. She felt that she should help ease the burden of parents with low incomes as they educate their children. Up to date Betsy together with her husband support Potter’s House. Betsy has served as the chairperson of The Philanthropy Roundtable and American Federation for Children board of directors. She has also served on other boards both locally and nationally including the DeVos Institute for Arts Management at the University of Maryland, Foundation for Excellence in Education, ArtPrize and American Enterprise Institute. She has been the chairperson of Alliance for School Choice from 2009 to 2016. Mrs. DeVos has also served as board member of Great Lakes Education Project and at The Potter’s House School.

George Soros is a global investor. He currently ranks among the top 30 richest men with a net worth estimated at $25 billion. Having risen from a humble background and enduring hardships at a young age, George has a soft spot for the less privileged in society and values making substantial contributions towards supporting them. Estimates indicate that he has spent over $12 billion to support causes fighting for justice and equality.

Soros was born in 1930 in Hungary. He survived the Jewish massacre by the Nazis who killed approximately 5,000 Hungarian Jews. His family managed to escape through use of fake papers and false identity and later relocated to England in 1947. In England, Soros attended London School of Economics earning a bachelor’s and master’s degree in philosophy. As a student, he did odd jobs including working as a waiter in a nightclub and a porter at the railway to raise enough for his personal support.

George Soros started his career working for various merchant banks in the United States after immigrating in 1956. He quit employment in 1969 to start his worn hedge fund named Double Eagle. He moved on to start Soros Fund Management with the first profits made from Double Eagle that he later renamed to Quantum Fund. It is on this platform that Soros rose to be one of the biggest investors in the history of US. Read more at The New York Times about George.

With his newly found fortune, Soros created the Open Society Foundations based on the philosophy of Karl Popper that Soros first came across during his time in college. The theory argues that no philosophy or ideology is the arbiter of truth. It further states that democratic governance is the only key to the success of societies across the globe.

His philanthropic work started in 1979 by offering scholarships to the South African black community suffering under apartheid. He proceeded to offer the Communist Eastern Bloch a platform to exchange ideas by providing them with a photocopier to be used in the reprinting of materials. George Soros pioneered the Central European University after the fall of Berlin wall with intent to provide an ideal place to foster critical thinking. His funding went further to aid in cultural exchanges between the West and Eastern Europe, consequentially opening the Soviet society to the world. Read more about George’s life story at biography.com.

Alongside fighting for democracy, transparency, and accountability in governments, George Soros became actively involved in fighting for recognition of same-sex marriages in the early 2000s. He also started the medical marijuana movement in the US, which fights for recognition of the drug as a treatment for cancer and other health conditions. He continues to transverse the world identifying and fighting for worthy causes to improve the lives of the less privileged in society.